The same evening, still the same, Peter sits alone in Sylvia’s kitchen looking down at the screen of his phone. Thoughtless feeling. Mind an emptied bowl almost echoing. Photograph of a casserole dish. When the screen begins to darken he taps to light it again: his only conscious action for a minute or two. No sound in the room except the faint occasional rumble of passing traffic at the front of the building. Toneless hum of the refrigerator. Finally with the same dull blankness of mind he texts Naomi that he won’t be home for dinner. After many drafts and redrafts adds: Sylvia’s not feeling great, so I’m going to hang around at hers for a bit in case she needs me. Is that ok? Naomi writes back promptly: oh ok, no worries. hope she feels better soon. Almost wants to tell her that he would do the same for her. For her, Naomi, if she were ill, which she was that time, and he did. Hang around, that is, in case she needed him. An ear infection, whenever it was, April, May. On the mattress in her old room, holding her small hot head in his lap, stroking her hair, saying nothing. For you I would do the same: and isn’t that the basic problem, that he would do the same, wants to, and Christ in heaven, actually does. When civilisation is fundamentally premised on the exclusivity of such willingness. And why is it? Oh, who knows why, that doesn’t matter now.
He rises to his feet and mechanically butters the toast he had put on before. Goes inside to help her sit up in bed when she’s ready to eat. Her face tired, lined, smiling through the veil of her pain, and she thanks him. Takes some more painkillers and tries to eat what she can. After he clears the dishes, they watch a film on his laptop, something with Fred Astaire, but she falls asleep before it’s finished. He sits for a time against the headboard watching her. His love for her poisoned he thinks. With guilt, with shame. Not as if she doesn’t know of course: about the other. She does, always has. Not strictly monogamous he told her, which was true after all. Why then this feeling, claustrophobic, panic even, as if concealing on his person a murder weapon. Because he has given each woman reason to believe that he is actually in love with her. Worse: because he himself has believed it. Though he has been selfish, erratic, yes, bad-tempered, distant, he has not knowingly lied, not about that. And now, as if waking at last from a nonsensical dream, he surveys in terror the disorder of his life. Before, when they talked, and she touched him, everything was peaceful, simple, tender. Now, retreating from the small closed intimacy of that moment, taking into account the broader picture, the girlfriend he lives with, for instance, who is twenty-three, and sometimes gives him head in the morning before they get out of bed, he feels suddenly very frightened, and even shocked, as if this situation comes as news to him. Sweat breaking out under the collar of his sweatshirt he feels again, back of the neck, thinking about her, and the other. His own actions, which now seem so wrong as to be morally illegible. At least if you kill someone you have a motive. What on earth is he doing, what has he done. Beside him she turns over in her sleep, mouth half-open. He leaves her a note on the bedside table: Call any time you need me. Don’t worry if it’s late. I love you.
Outside on the street, the first mouthful of cold dark air, yes. No need to go home yet. Stay in town for a while, have a drink, settle his nerves. And on that point, he takes from his wallet a foil sheet and tosses back without tasting two pills. Slipping phone from pocket he walks back towards the Green, tapping out a few messages: You around? With what seems touching loyalty Gary replies: Few of us in Mulligan’s. Seat here with your name on it. Phone locked, dropped dead into the pocket of his coat, heavy, and the misted air of the night wreathes itself in majesty around his body. Crowns of luminous streetlight hanging weightless and silent over the heads of passers-by. Talk to someone he would nearly like to. Quick opinion poll. Has to be one or the other, of course, that’s a given. Nobody argues about that anymore, except those unnerving moon-faced people, the polyamorous, fetishists, and so forth. People who have cashed in their erotic stake in civil society and are doomed forever after to sexual irrelevance in the eyes of anyone normal, no offence. With all due respect he would rather drop dead. And yet, dreaded thought intruding, is he not, in some sense, already? Considering his feelings for, and not only wanting, but in fact, to some extent, having; in the sense of engaging in what might broadly be called sex acts, with more than one woman in the space of twenty-four hours. Might be alright if they were strangers, just girls he never intended to see again: bit over the top, but people in his experience tend not to judge. No, what makes it perverse is somehow confusingly the degree of his emotional involvement. The fact in other words that he actually likes them both. Is it so unthinkable? People can have affairs without exiting the sexual mainstream, surely, even if everyone agrees that affairs are wrong: wrong, of course, yes, but not suggestive of sexual deviance. That one might feel attached to both wife and mistress must be in limited circumstances, though not condoned, still basically accepted and understood. Certainly, when it comes to the question of his own self-esteem, he would rather be thought a cheater than some kind of freak. But then that would only be a case of borrowing someone else’s self-esteem: because whatever he might gain would be the woman’s loss. Or more than one woman’s. God help him. No, he thinks, no, no: the only question is how to choose. Should he take the cash prize or the new car, what do you think. Pitting one philosophy against another. Maturity against youth. Yes, sobriety against decadence, intellect against appetite, he could go on. Better instead to specify. On the one hand, the love of his life, high principle of his conscience, his complicated feelings for whom have prevented him, let’s be honest, from developing any kind of serious attachment to anyone else for the last, whatever, fourteen years. Certain difficulties, certain problems to be negotiated, but isn’t that what it means to love someone? On the other hand, his captive, his tormentor, on whom he has lavished how much money, jewellery, gifts, who likes it a little rough, who has with mischievous pleasure outwitted him at every move, and with whom he is feebly and defeatedly in love. Each attempt to contend with her, to win back some little portion of his pride, has only sunk him deeper. Good against evil.
No. Never mind. No one to talk to in any case. Not his friends: they know her a little, and the other, mutual acquaintances. Unfair to put them in that position. Whatever they might suspect, whatever they might already be saying amongst themselves. Discretion he thinks can render almost any eccentricity acceptable, at least for a limited time. As if it’s not so much the tangled relations, but the desire for some transparency in one’s personal life that is after all perverse. And maybe it is. Range of advice he can anyway imagine. Look, she’s a lot of fun, but it’s time to get serious. You’re just playing with each other, it’s some kind of power game, no one’s going to win. You’ve only ever really loved one woman, just go and be with her. That young one knows how to look after herself. She’ll find another fool with a nice big bank account, don’t worry. The opposite line of course equally plausible. You have to move on, Peter. It’s been over for a long time. What you’re really clinging to, it’s not her, it’s your own youth, your hopes, dreams, trying impossibly to regain what you’ve lost. So you messed around for a few minutes, she gave you a handjob, so what. Jesus, it’s pathetic, it doesn’t change anything. She’s gone: let go. You have a life to live. Nice little girlfriend at home to wreck your head for you, what else do you need. Feels sick thinking: and for who, for her, the other, for himself. Why anyway attachment, why always this attachment to particular people. Why never any sensual excitement at the idea of the unknown, the strangers as yet unmet. Make a break for it maybe. Get shot of the whole town, the whole country, go off somewhere new. Attachment, the cause of all suffering, so the Buddhists say. To cling to what you have, what you have had, the life you have known, the handful of people and places you have ever really loved, to cling and not let go. Never relenting, never accepting, becoming all the time more enmeshed, holding harder, loving and hating more.
At Mulligan’s, the whole gang are in: Gary, Matt, Val Fitzgerald, Elaine Barrett, her friend Agnieszka. Chair to one side of the table piled high with coats and bags, which Gary starts rearranging when he sees him. Calls of greeting. Alright, big man, says Matt. Come here and see if you can settle an argument for us. Elaine laughing says: I think he’s more of a man for starting arguments than settling them. Feels himself smiling now, fragrance of stale alcohol in the air, and aftershave, cocktail of scents signalling the inexorable approach of mild pleasurable drunkenness, half-heard conversation, laughter, yes, he takes off his coat and answers: Let me get a drink first. Anyone want anything? Back at the table with a glass in his hand, cold, the fresh wet taste faintly savoury in his mouth, he experiences a moment of peace in which nothing of significance seems to be wrong with his life after all. Around him his friends are arguing about the housing market, the extent to which the crisis is driven by a shortage in supply. Finishes the first drink, has another. It’s nonsense, Elaine is saying. It’s made up. Half the properties in the city are empty. And don’t get me started on the office buildings. He drinks and in tranquillity listens to the stream of relevant vocabulary: high density, new build, compulsory purchase orders. What about Naomi’s house? Gary asks. What ever happened to that? Peter puts down his drink, answering: I don’t know. The guys they brought in for the eviction smashed the place up. Baseball bats and everything. Cries of horror from the others. Fucking hell, says Elaine.
I didn’t know about that, says Val. She alright?
Naomi? says Peter. Yeah, she’s good. She’s fine.
But it must have been terrifying, says Agnieszka. Where is she living now?
Picking up his drink again Peter answers: Ah, she’s staying at mine for a bit. Unofficially.
You know I still haven’t met her, Elaine says. I’ve only seen a picture.
At this he notices in his peripheral vision Val and Matt glancing surreptitiously at one another, and then away again. Knowing, he realises. Didn’t know they knew. Elaine doesn’t mean that, obviously, or she wouldn’t have said. How long he wonders have they known. Or seen for themselves perhaps. Jesus: fans of hers. Imagine. And answers offhandedly: Yeah, I must introduce you.
She’s great, says Gary.
Wordlessly Peter contemplates the remark. Great, yes. Also very expensive and probably insane. No, she’s a nice girl, it’s not her fault. I just get off on messing with her head, I don’t know why. I’m in love with someone else anyway. Once you meet your soulmate, there’s no point pretending, is there? Feeling of solace you get when she’s near you. To live the right life. Naomi can’t complain, she’s well looked after. It’s all good, we have fun together. Too much fun if anything. Find myself fantasising sometimes about getting her pregnant. How pretty she would look and happy. Take her around town buying things for the nursery. Idea of running into people we know somehow erotic: look what I did to her, kind of thing. As sexual fantasies go, it’s not the most unnatural, is it. Used to have the same one, once before. Differently. Long time ago. Yeah, when I think too hard about my life, I do start feeling suicidal, funny you should ask. Conversation has moved on, something about capital gains tax, and he finishes a third drink, gets up to order a fourth. Taste slightly sour in his mouth as usual. Need another to cleanse the palate. Had forgotten almost about her former career: ages he thinks since she’s done any of that. And not as if she was really serious about it. He’s seen the pictures himself, practically tasteful as these things go. Only one or two you could call truly pornographic, and she raked it in for those, special requests. Closed the account back in February or whenever it was. Subsisting since on his largesse, her desultory sale of prescription sedatives, and the occasional bar shifts she picks up from friends. Still, probably the talk of the Law Library by now. He too would be talking, if it were someone else. Half in scorn and half in jealousy. Involuntarily and for no reason he remembers the image of Sylvia this afternoon, clutching with her hand at the carpet in agony. Yes, too much against not enough. By the time the barman sees him he orders after all a shot of vodka as well. Drink it at the bar and no one will notice. Tastes of nothing, just settle his nerves. Cool damp cloth to the fever in his head. Asleep still he wonders: or waking has seen already the note he left. Call me. I love you. And the other: did she eat alone the dinner she had cooked for him. Or just give up and order Chinese food, lie on the sofa repainting her nails. A proliferation of inappropriate feeling he thinks. Disorder of sentiment. Remembering the way his father would write out on lined paper the doctor’s instructions, spidery handwriting, names of medications. His meek deference, yes, even in the face of certain death, with no hope he would be spared, when his obedience could buy him nothing. Peter meanwhile in a blind rage at everything: the consultants, registrars, the hospital vending machines. Out at the house one day, in Kildare, on hold with the insurance people for twenty minutes, he kicked a hole in the garden fence. Said he’d get it fixed and never did. Sickened with shame. To find his father reduced in the end to a figure of pity. Couldn’t even look at him, didn’t want to. His timidity an embarrassment, or worse, an insult. As if he didn’t mind what was being done to them, as if it was all okay. Cowed by the fury he would say nothing, do nothing, avert his eyes, pretending not to see. Peter like a child again, flare-ups of bad temper ignored. Unacknowledged. Look at me. Why do you have to leave. Why does everyone, why does everyone always have to leave me, why. Actually, I’m sorry, before I settle up, I’ll have the same again. Vodka, yeah, thanks. Can I pay with card?
Back at the table Elaine is putting her coat on, Val checking the bus timetable. You were some time up there. Yeah, he says. I ran into someone. You’re hardly heading off already? It’s after eleven, Agnieszka replies. Don’t want to miss the Dart. Turning to Gary he says: You’re not going, are you? Hears too late the desperation in his own voice, which politely they all pretend not to notice, buttoning their coats, looking in handbags. Go on, I’ll stay for one, Gary says. Stilted goodbyes they exchange. Gary only hanging on out of pity, everyone can see. Feeling sorry for him: they all are. Should have been obvious before. For weeks, months, his flat affect, strained conversation. Tired all the time and distracted. Poor man, it’s really hit him hard. Never knew they were that close. What does it matter. Left alone with him at the table now Gary asks how he’s getting on. He says something about Ivan blocking his number, and they talk vaguely about families, bereavement, affects people differently. He’ll come around. Peter nods his head and then for no reason remarks: Well, to tell you the truth, we don’t really like each other. Ever since he was a teenager, it’s been like that. He hates me because he thinks I’m an arrogant prick, and I look down on him because I think he’s a fucking loser. Smiling nervously Gary interjects: Ah, I don’t think you think that, really.
Surface of Peter’s drink catching the overhead light, bubbles winking at the brim. No, he says. I don’t know. He has a girlfriend, did I tell you that? Some married woman over in Leitrim. Or she’s divorced or whatever. Older than we are, a few years older.
Oh yeah? How long is that going on?
Another mouthful, lukewarm now and tasteless. I don’t know, he says. A month or two. A few weeks after the funeral, he met her. That’s why he’s not speaking to me, I told him to stay away from her, more or less. I don’t know, I said she was probably mental or something.
Ah, right, says Gary. That wasn’t a great idea, maybe.
No, yeah, he says. I just thought, you know, how could anyone halfway normal want to hang around with him? Like, however you want to dress it up, that’s what I really thought. I could tell you I was being protective. And I was, in a way, but only because I thought this woman must not be right in the head.
Slurring he can hear in some of his own consonants now, the pills, the alcohol. Sensibly, not unkindly, Gary offers: You probably hurt his feelings, saying that.
Watches the white froth sliding down the inside of his pint glass under the light. I’m sure I did, he says. And it’s pure hypocrisy if you think about it, because he’s the same age as Naomi. If I’m really honest with myself, I think that’s probably the reason I reacted so badly. Part of the reason. When I look at how I’ve fucked things up for her, you know. She’s twenty-three, she doesn’t know any better. The sad thing is I actually like her, but what can I do? I don’t know. I don’t want my brother ending up in the situation she’s in, that’s the truth. If this woman he’s seeing is as selfish as I am, he’s fucked.
A few seconds pass in silence, and then Gary says: I’m not sure I’m following you there. Are things not going well between yourself and Naomi?
He picks up his glass and drains it, replaces it on the table. Checks for no reason his watch which in the light he can’t anyway make out. No, he says. There’s someone else. It’s all kind of complicated. But look, I won’t keep you.
Oh right, says Gary. Someone else— on your side, you mean?
Peter pulls his satchel up into his lap, starts fastening it shut, answering: Yeah.
In the same mild non-judgemental tone of voice Gary says: I see, okay. It wouldn’t be your ex-girlfriend, would it? I think I met her at the funeral.
Peter looks up at him, exhausted, head beginning to ache. Sylvia, he says. Yeah. Gary gives a kind of understanding nod of his head and, unbelievably, says nothing, does not appear to feel the need to say anything. Peter in silence stares at him for a time, holding awkwardly his satchel in his lap, and finally saying: What do you think I should do?
In response, Gary raises his eyebrows, but with a mild look. Oh, he says. I suppose I wouldn’t know, Peter. It’s complicated, alright. It would depend on the situation.
Peter rises finally from his seat, starts putting his coat on, affecting disinterest now, as if all a joke, absently smiling. Bigamy, that’s still illegal, isn’t it? he says.
Gary gives a kind of bemused laugh, answering: Yeah, I think so. Come here, how are you getting home? You want me to call a taxi?
Prickling he feels in his eyes, his nose. No, I’ll walk, he says. Lays a hand on Gary’s shoulder saying: The soul of decency, you are. And then he’s outside, breathing the dirty air of Poolbeg Street, brackish odour of the quays. It’s been raining: still is a little. Hanging in the air around him, freckles of cool water. Hands in his pockets up to College Green. Yes, it has to be done, has to be done. There is only one way out. She, or the other. Could of course just have done with the whole thing and walk in front of a bus but they’ve probably stopped running at this hour and it wouldn’t be fair on them would it. Herself with nowhere to live. Ivan mortified no doubt after their little quarrel. And Sylvia: Christ in heaven, she might think it was because of her. Try to remember he thinks. This afternoon in bed, her fingers unbuttoning. That was good, wasn’t it, and they were happy. Only a little rearrangement required now to make everything simple. Yes. To inflict pain knowingly on others he has always been too cowardly: though he has, for all that, inflicted probably more than his fair share of pain. The house in Kildare sitting empty, he thinks, at least there’s that, if she needs it, and he won’t be leaving her destitute on top of everything else. Drunk now finally and feeling sick at the thought. Try to recall instead the half-darkness in her room, the way she smiled, and it could be like that again, not only once but for the rest of their lives. Correcting undergraduate essays together in the evenings, reading aloud the worst sentences to make each other laugh. On her little stereo system, the Barenboim recording of the 40th Symphony. Walking over together to their tenants’ union meetings arm in arm, heads bent, absorbed in conversation. With his fingers now he wipes his eyes. The image of that life: how beautiful, how painful, to believe it could after all be possible. For so long it has hurt too much even to think. And now everything hurts so much all the time that to think makes no difference, to think even lends a kind of sweetness to the terrible pain. The life they could have had together. The refuge of a shared home, their books, furniture, watercolours. Gatherings at the kitchen table, friends calling round for dinner, arguing, laughing. The love they could have given to their own children. Wanted to give. Impossible ever to feel again like a good person, even halfway good, when all the good he had wanted to do in life was closed off to him forever. Had no route left through which to travel. Remained inside him, trapped, festering, turning into something stranger and worse. Proliferation of inappropriate attachments. Holding hard, harder, clutching, not letting go. Well, if that’s suffering, he thinks, let me suffer. Yes. To love whoever I have left. And if ever I lose someone, let me descend into a futile and prolonged rage, yes, despair, wanting to break things, furniture, appliances, wanting to get into fights, to scream, to walk in front of a bus, yes. Let me suffer, please. To love just these few people, to know myself capable of that, I would suffer every day of my life. Passing the Green he’s badly drunk, not even walking straight anymore. She might be out when he gets in: probably for the best. Crawl like a coward into his empty bed. Wishes he had told his father. We’ve worked things out, Dad, we’re getting back together. Don’t worry about me, I’m happy. Everything’s good. You know we all love you very much. That’s the only important thing. Thought so wretched he feels his eyes getting blurry, yes, and has to wipe them, half-supporting himself against a lamp-post. If anyone he knows. Peter is that you. Oh yes, I’m sorry. I was just thinking about my father. He died, you see. Not knowing. That I still. That we both, he didn’t know. That I hated him for leaving me. That I loved him so much. Wiping with the heels of his hands his eyes he stands up, listing, stumbles on down Baggot Street and home.
Upstairs in the flat she’s sitting in the dark watching snooker. Some old episode of Crucible Classics probably with her man O’Sullivan five frames in the lead. Armchair she has pulled over to rest her bare feet on. Hello stranger, she says. How’s the other girlfriend feeling? Closing the door behind him he leans against the opposite wall, bracing, and answers: Yeah, she’s okay. Glancing around at him she sits up, hard to see her expression. Are you drunk? she asks. Taking off his coat he answers yes. Fuck off, she says. I thought you told me you were looking after Sylvia. Feels as though if he bends even slightly to take his shoes off he will fall on the floor and for this reason enters the room with his shoes still on, feeling under his hand for various items of furniture. Jesus, Peter, she says. You’re seriously out of it, are you alright? Yes he thinks he should have told. I love you. Her, the other. Finds himself holding the arm of the couch beside where she sits, saying aloud: I’m sorry. She has turned off the television, darker the room now, and she puts her hand on his, he can feel, and even kind of see, rotating strangely before his eyes. Has something happened? she asks. And with a kind of weakening dropping sensation he finds himself on the carpet, his head by her knee, and he’s repeating: I’m sorry. Her hand he can feel on his head. You’re freaking me out, she says. Is there something wrong, or you’re just hammered? His forehead resting on her lap now, the soft ribbed cotton of her leggings: green he knows without looking. ‘Forest green’, from the website she likes. In a thick-sounding voice he says aloud: I have to talk to you about something. Her hand pauses in its motion over his hair but she doesn’t lift it away. What? she asks.
His face still wet he thinks, and reaches vaguely to touch again his eyes. About Sylvia, he answers. I want to explain.
For no reason he stops speaking and she says with faintly anxious impatience: Yeah, go on.
Thick feeling in his mouth swallowing. Look, we were together before, he says. Like I told you. For a while, a long time, six years. And then when she was twenty-five, she was in an accident. It was serious. She was really badly injured, she was in terrible pain. And I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t help her. She was the one who wanted to break up. I didn’t want to. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t. Even now, she’s still in pain, all the time, every day. I swear to God, we were so happy before, we really were. And I can’t even think about it anymore. Even to remember it, I can’t. Nothing has made any sense to me since then. Not one thing. My life, it’s like it’s this horrible dream that keeps going on and on, and I can’t wake up. I mean never, no matter how long I wait, I’ll never wake up again. You actually start thinking, Christ, at least I get to die at the end. Or even wishing it would happen. I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to say it, but I do wish that sometimes, just that it would be over. He lifts his face from her knee, wipes unseeing his streaming eyes, his nose running. The reason we don’t sleep together, he says, it’s because we can’t. Because of what happened, she can’t. But we’re not just friends. And I’m still in love with her, Naomi. I always have been. I’m sorry.
For a time there’s only silence, and he waits with his face in his hands, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Finally she says: Okay. I knew there was something between you, obviously. But I didn’t understand the situation. It sounds really sad, what happened. Clearly. I don’t know what to say. I feel for her.
Wiping once more his face he looks up. Darkness of the room lighted only by the streetlamp out the window. Young and beautiful in the dim bluish shadow she stares back at him. She knows about me? she says.
He answers quickly: Yeah, of course. She knows, of course she does. If anything she probably thinks I’ve been more honest with you, about the situation, than I actually have. And I’m sorry for that. Trembling with a rush of terrible feeling inside himself as if to get sick, he goes on: But I can’t do this anymore. We have to stop. You and me. Whatever it is, I can’t let it keep going on.
Slowly she nods her head while he’s speaking. Then in a simple quiet voice she answers: Okay. You know I don’t have anywhere else to live. But if you’re saying you want me to go, I’ll go.
He now also finds himself nodding his head. Room spinning in dim circles before his eyes. To catch and hold his gaze on a single spot: and then to feel it slide out, away, as if pulled from under him. I’ll find you somewhere, he says. You know, my dad’s house is there, if you need it. In Kildare, it’s not convenient, but it’s empty. There’s a train. And I can help you out with money. I don’t want to make life hard for you.
In the dark she makes some kind of gesture, like a shrug, her shoulders moving. Okay, she says. Touches her nose then with her fingers. Do you hate me? she asks. Then immediately she gives something like a strained laugh and adds: Actually, don’t say, I don’t want to know.
Feeling his jaw weakening again, sense in his throat that if he tries to answer he will only cry, so drunk he can hardly see, and he lays his head on her lap again. I don’t hate you, he says. Tight and painful his throat. If I say what I really feel it’s just worse, he says. But I don’t hate you, not at all. Pathetic, he thinks. Hard to believe even real. What did he want her for if not to ruin his life.
Do you love me, she says.
And he answers: Yeah. I love you, of course I do.
Silence for a moment and then her tone thin and managed saying: But then why are you making me go away?
Without lifting his head he replies: I’m trying to explain. I don’t know what else to do.
If you just want to keep on seeing Sylvia, you can, she says. I don’t mind. I get that it’s complicated, I’m not trying to interfere between you. We’ll work something out.
Even closing his eyes now he still sees or senses the room spinning, sensation of orbit. That’s not real life, he mutters. That kind of thing, what you’re talking about, life doesn’t work like that. A little sound he hears, quick release of her breath, as if frustrated. And how does it work? she says. You tell me you love me and then it’s alright, goodbye, I never want to see you again. Just so you can delude yourself that you’re normal, everything is normal. You’re so fucking sick in the head you don’t even see what you’re doing to yourself. Trying to put everyone in their little box. And if we would all just stay there, then there wouldn’t be any problems. Whatever. I’m sorry about what happened to your friend. I can see it’s horrific, it’s upsetting, I get that. You love each other, obviously. I didn’t understand before. But I’m literally right here, like at this moment. I’m a real person, this is actually my life. I don’t know. Fuck you, to be honest. I want to go to bed. She gets up, scrambling, knocking him away with her knee, and he also finds himself somehow upright, or halfway, holding to the arm of the couch again, swaying or the room is. Naomi, he says. Soft the feeling of her body in his arms again, soft, his hand touching her hip, her waist, and sensing her breath close, her mouth, wet, and they kiss. Deep, yes, the taste of her. Forget everything he thinks. Go and live together on the continent, somewhere no one knows them. See her tanned and laughing in some green garden, rich heavy fragrance of flowers in the air. Sitting in the shade while he’s clearing the table, clinking of glasses. Infant at her breast. Real life, that would be, yes. Do you want to come to bed before you send me away? she murmurs. Opening his eyes vaguely into the rotating blackness around them, awake enough to be at least finally ashamed. Ah, that would be nice, he says. But I think I’m too out of it, I’m sorry. Her head she lets fall against his chest. Hurt, disappointed. Final move she had to play he thinks. Or perhaps just wanted to. Why always assign to her the ulterior motive: let himself off the hook as usual. At the back of her neck, warm, he traces his fingertips. Lifts her face to kiss once more her mouth. In the morning, he says. Before you go. Her lips dimly parted looking up at him. You won’t want to in the morning, she answers. Again they kiss, wet depth of her mouth, familiar. No, he says, don’t worry, I will. In a whisper she tells him to promise and he promises. Lower again and almost inaudible she says: And you’ll tell me you love me. He closes his eyes. Because she wants that. To hear him say it to her when they. Happy woman: yes, to make her. What is he thinking. What on earth. Why, for what possible reason, why. To send her away. Aloud he hears himself say simply: Yeah. I’ll tell you in the morning. Now let’s get some sleep.